All of SaraAzubuike's Comments + Replies

controversiality need not be extremely correlated with outrage. in fact, outrage can be very uncontroversial (school shooting). and controverisality is often productive (debate about X). my inclination is to trust the readership of this forum. promoting visibility to controversial posts will help people discuss ideas they've neglected. 

One reaction I've seen in several places, mostly outside EA, is something like, "this was obviously a fraud from the start, look at all the red flags, how could EAs have been so credulous?" I think this is mostly wrong: the red flags they cite (size of FTX's claimed profits, located in the Bahamas, involved in crypto, relatively young founders, etc.) are not actually strong indicators here. Cause for scrutiny, sure, but short of anything obviously wrong.

To make money, you not only have to be right, but be right at the right time. Imagine you predicte... (read more)

Thanks for taking the time to comment. The details of the interaction between Alameda and FTX were very hard to pinpoint. And the timing was such that it was very hard to profit off of the collapse, even if you were very skeptical of cryptocurrencies to begin with. Hence, the whole misplaced discussion on the forum of, "Institutional investors, who have a profit motive, didn't foresee this. How could we have?" For example, exchanges like Binance have not experienced similar meltdowns.  

But to make money, you not only have to be right, but be right at ... (read more)

The important thing is to design a system where it takes more work to a) post a lie b) refute the truth. And also, somehow design said system such that there is incentive to a) post the truth b) refute a lie, and importantly c) read/spread the truth. Whether this is by citations or a reputation-based voting system is beyond me but something I've been mulling over for quite some time.  

I like to think that open exchange of ideas, if conducted properly, converges on the correct answer. Of course, the forum in which this exchange occurs is crucial, especially the systems and software. Compare the amount of truth that you obtain from BBC, Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, Kialo, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and EA forum. All of these have different methods of verifying truth. The beauty of a place like each of these is that with the exception of BBC, you can post whatever you want. 

But the inconvenient truth will be penalized in different ways.... (read more)

I think a post on past frauds would be very welcome, although a list of reading recommendations would be equally helpful and would require less work for you. EA has a lot to learn from more diverse voices that are more experienced in management within large organizations.

None that I know of. 

But I'm concerned that they couldn't simply state why they believe AI is more important than climate change rather than do this over-complicated scheme.

Agree

Disagree here because I don't want to see an EA forum that values controversial posts.

Disagree. This is like saying, "Amazon shouldn't sort by 1 star, because otherwise it will get a bad reputation for selling bad products."

That's wrong. People still have the option of sorting by whatever they choose. But the forum should give more visibility to posts that break people out of their comfort zone, should they desire. 

yes, I now think anonymity of the sort that I proposed is the wrong way of going about this. can you think of a better solution?

I strongly agree with the spirit of the reforms being suggested here (although I might have some different opinions on how to implement it)

How would you do things differently?

Sorry that the post came off as very harsh and accusatory tone. I mainly meant to express my exasperation with how the situation unfolded so quickly. I’m worried about the coming months and how that will affect the community and in the long term. 
Clearly, revealing who is donating is good for transparency. However, if donations were anonymized from the perspective of the recipients, I think that would help mitigate conflicts of interest. I think there needs to be more dialogue about how we can mitigate conflicts of interest, regardless of whether we a... (read more)

Ok, I’m not too clear about the legal perspective. I guess my main purpose is this post was to start a dialogue about how we could have avoided such a situation with some preliminary suggestions.

Yes, I don’t really care about getting credit for predicting this; I pointed out my previous post mainly to give credence to my suggestions. And based on the comments of other people, maybe anonymous donations or not the best, most feasible, nor most practical way to do things. But, given that EAs focus very much on catastrophic tail risks, it should be the case that we not become overly reliant on single donations or donations which generate such large conflicts of interest. I don't know what system would be best.

Apologies. Yes, thanks for reading and responding to my prior post. I believe I haven’t edited it since we last spoke in the comments section, but I did edit it when you pointed them out.

Hi, thanks for replying! I've made this into an EA forum post, instead because I'm afraid it'll get buried in the comments here. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9YodZj6J6iv3xua4f/another-ftx-post-suggestions-for-change

I've made this into a post on the forum, because I'm afraid it'll get buried in the comments here. Please comment on the forum post instead.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9YodZj6J6iv3xua4f/another-ftx-post-suggestions-for-change

I suggested that we would have trouble with FTX and funding around 6 months ago.  

SBF has been giving lots of money to EA. He admits it's a massively speculative bubble. Crypto crash hurts the most vulnerable, because poor uneducated people put lots of money into it (Krugman). Crypto is currently small, but should be

agree with this. ea forum ideas shouldn't have to be polished. the more platforms we use, the less easy it is to find everything. 

sigh

fair. let's agree to disagree.

I mean, ok, to be more technical SBF is "charging commissions to people in the ponzi and trading against them". 

This is like being the owner of a casino, which is itself a perhaps benign thing. Let's say poor uneducated people lose billions of dollars of wealth at said casino. Regardless of the casino owner's admitting that his business is a speculative bubble or a ponzi scheme or whatever, he's still profiting off of peoples' losses at said casino. 

most crypto projects are at least trying to do something.

But whether something amounts to anything... (read more)

don't see where you get the 99.9% number, but yes, it does seem crypto is commonly used in scams.

I think this ignores the central thesis of this post. 

Perhaps it was intentionally provocative, but from the transcript of the interview, you can read SBF admitting that cryptocurrencies are like a useless box that gains value because other people want to profit off of said useless box...

current EA spending is a small percentage of EA wealth

I would tend to disagree. This is like saying to an individual that donates 5% of their income that since 5% of annual income is a small percentage of their total wealth (which might include their house and other assets) that a 90% decline in their income would not affect ... (read more)

I don't like how all the comments basically reiterate that smart people have more impact. Of course smart people do. But one avenue for EA to actually make a difference--is to appeal to the masses. For policy to change, you have to appeal to the body politic. And for that, we do need a diverse range of skillsets from people that are much different than the average EA (for example, having more super-social salesperson types in EA would be a net positive for EA)

I refer you to Toby's piece, from Larks's reply to this post. 

However, while many cases of spontaneous abortion do indeed result from chromosomal defects, this is not enough to undermine the main argument in this article. There are several reasons for this. First, it is important to note that some chromosomal defects are non-fatal, such as Down syn- drome (which involves three copies of chromosome 21). We rightly value people with Down syndrome and so, if the Claim is correct, we should also value and protect embryos with similar chromosomal abnormali

My bad, I meant to say, "If we can all agree to care about human beings that are already in existence, what then matters is what counts as a human being." The split between many EAs is just as you say -- some care about future lives a lot; some don't. However, I think what we all can agree upon is that humans that exist now are extremely important. Thus, what then matters is what counts as a human being.

Hey, thanks for the reply. I had read Toby's piece some time ago, but didn't cite it because I couldn't find it. Now editing the original. Overall, I think Toby's article is very pertinent, but potentially wrong. The very fact that many people do not support the "Conclusion" implies that there is a prevailing problem with the way people perceive the consequences of what they actually believe. 

"The argument then, is as follows. The embryo has the same moral status as an adult human (the Claim). Medical studies show that more than 60% of all people are

Thanks for the link. It's good to get a sense of the scale of things. I hadn't realized that induced abortions were such a large number.

The reason I wanted to use the "human" bit was that I think the argument about "potential" is flawed. If we care about depriving the future potential of something, then we would oppose girls education on the basis that it reduces fertility (i.e. potential human beings). See https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YSz8JsCi3u7fupWHX/is-ea-just-about-population-growth.

If we care only about human beings that are already in e... (read more)

Hey, thanks for answering my post. Means a lot, especially since you seem to be more familiar with philosophy than me. 

"Total utilitarians care about intrinsic value of outcomes."
- But a) death is painful b) death is the loss of future life c) parents grieve over miscarriages just as people grieve over the loss of a friend.

"Embryos must have an interest in continued existence."
- Hm, but I argue this is a temporary state. Say I give that mother nutrition and I wait 9 months. That embryo now has an interest in continued existence. In a similar vein, sui... (read more)